Herefordshire Council is assuring residents it has robust measures in place to combat benefit fraud.
The council states that the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate’s (BFI) comments fly in the face of findings by independent inspectors who visited the council in September last year.
The Comprehensive Performance Assessment of the Council rated the authority’s benefit fraud work as “excellent”.
“This BFI announcement does not take account of recent improvements,” said Sonia Rees, the Council’s Director of Resources.
“We introduced new software which affected performance early last year but our performance improved during the second half of 2005/06.
“It’s also important to realise that the BFI announcement relates to the number of checks and investigations we’ve carried out specifically relating to people who continue to claim benefit despite an increase in their earnings,” added Sonia.
“Crucially, the targets set do not recognise that we have a higher level of pensioner claimants than most other authorities in the country. Pensioners tend to be on fixed incomes and there is therefore a significantly reduced risk that we will uncover benefit fraud in this sector,” added Sonia.
Cllr Mike Wilson, Cabinet Member (Resources), was also disappointed to hear that the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate had singled out the Council.
“During the last six months we have seen considerable improvement in performance. In recent months alone we have seen 11 cases in court as a result of investigations into benefit fraud.
“We’re looking forward to welcoming the inspectors so they can see how much we are doing and how much we’ve improved to ensure that public money is protected from unscrupulous fraudsters,” said Cllr Wilson.